


Different

by DictionaryWrites



Series: i'm emo over gabriel nbd [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Boss/Employee Relationship, Complicated Relationships, Crushes, Gabriel POV (Good Omens), M/M, Power Dynamics, Unrequited, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 04:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19040839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: “See?” Gabriel said again, more urgently this time, because he wanted Aziraphale to like him, and to smile, and to say— He didn’t know. He didn’t know what he wanted him to say. But he was different, and it was frustrating, didn’t he see it? Didn’t he see how different he was, and how Gabriel noticed, and how Gabriel wanted him to notice him back?





	Different

Gabriel caught him when he came to deliver some paperwork upstairs. He’d shaken off his usual retinue – for some reason, he wanted to do this alone, to approach the angel of the Eastern Gate, to— He didn’t even know.

It was some time after Eden, and he saw the white-robed figure move past one of the celestial not-quite-corridors, and he— Well, he _did_ run, because here, in the offices, he was not quite celestial, as he was in the Heavens themselves, but approximated a shape like they had, the people down below.

“Ah!” Aziraphale blurted out when Gabriel rushed up behind him, moving swiftly in front of him before he could keep moving past. The bodies they had were made corporeal from the approximations they had here, in the offices, and Aziraphale’s was small and soft and rounded at the edges. Gabriel’s was bigger: he was taller, and his shape had harder angles, at the shoulders and the waist. That felt important, in so basic a way that it was difficult to think about why precisely.  “Gabriel,” Aziraphale said, with a weird, awkward smile.

“Aziraphale,” Gabriel said, to hide the fact that he couldn’t think of something to say. He didn’t need anything from Aziraphale – merely that seeing him, he had been curious, had wanted to come closer… But what was there to be curious about? He was only around _humans_ , and Gabriel didn’t care about _them_ , that was other people’s business – he lead other angels, he managed other angels, and humans, they were other people’s job. His job, his job, it was…

Aziraphale was leaning away from him, against a pearly-white wall, clutching a sheaf of papers against his chest.

“What’cha got there?” he asked.

“Er, my miracle reports,” Aziraphale said. “But—”

“Do you like it?” Gabriel asked, the question dropping out of his mouth unbidden. He’d never ask, he was aware, if Aziraphale were like other angels, or if other angels were around, but he _wasn’t_ like other angels, and they _weren’t_. It was just him and Aziraphale in a stretch of infinite corridor, just the two of them. He liked that. Just the two of them. That felt… Yeah. It felt different than when it was just him and Michael, or just him and Sandalphon.  

“Do I,” Aziraphale said, and Gabriel watched his eyes move one way down the corridor and then down the other, “do I like what?” Aziraphale’s eyes were so _boring_ , not like Gabriel’s at all, but he wanted to look at them, for some reason, wanted to take them in – they were a drab, blue colour, or maybe green, and he leaned in to examine them better, watching the way the pupils shifted and widened, the way his mouth opened. Aziraphale had pink lips. The colour seemed important, for some reason – he didn’t know why.

“Earth!” Gabriel said.

“Oh. Er, well, yes, rather, I mean, I like… I like my work.”

“Good!” Gabriel says, and he clapped his hand against Aziraphale’s shoulder… and touched softness, _real_ softness, and he let out an exhalation, pressing his palm to the white cloth there. It was worn, the cloth, worn and soft to his palm, the fibre rendered light and smooth by repeated wear, and beneath it he could feel the _warmth_ of Aziraphale’s body – a real body! – and the regular beat of his heart. “Wow,” he murmured, putting his other hand on Aziraphale’s other shoulder. It was so… It was _warm_! He’d never really felt warmth before, not— not _physically_. And this was without a body – what would it feel like, if he, Gabriel, were fully physical too?

He squeezed, and Aziraphale lets out a noise.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, curiously kneading his thumbs on the flesh under the robe. He was so _warm_. Would Gabriel be this warm, if he had a body? “Does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t hurt, no,” Aziraphale said, his tone a little bit sharper. He was normally… Prissy. Fussy. But the smile had shifted and faltered off his face. But he was different. But there was just enough steel in that tone that Gabriel tilted his head slightly to the side to listen, his hands lingering on Aziraphale’s shoulders even as they loosened their grasp. “But I— I don’t really wish to be _squeezed_ , Gabriel.”

“Oh,” Gabriel said, and rubbed his thumbs against Aziraphale’s shoulders, wondering if his skin would feel this smooth. “Do you like having a body?”

For a second, Aziraphale’s face was frozen, and Gabriel wanted to drink it in, wanted to etch it all down. He was so _different_ to the other angels, especially the ones in Gabriel’s retinue, and for some reason, for some _reason_ , that was catching on him, making him look, and examine, and _touch_. What was it?

Aziraphale’s gaze flitted down Gabriel’s approximation of a form, and Gabriel felt—

Something.

It felt like a _flush_ of something, or a rush, or a flow, or—

“Well,” Aziraphale said, in his funny, prissy way. “It would be rather hard, Gabriel, to perform my duties without it.”

Gabriel laughed. It was a joke, wasn’t it? It was funny?

He laughed, and Aziraphale looked at him with… Gabriel couldn’t shake the implacable feeling that laughing was the wrong thing to do, and with great reluctance, he drew his hands away from Aziraphale’s shoulders, but where did he usually put them, when they weren’t touching someone else? He couldn’t remember. He’d never touched someone else like this before. In his pockets? In front of his belly?

“You’re funny,” Gabriel said, not letting his uncertainty show in his face – because angels, he was certain, weren’t uncertain, and _he_ , Gabriel, he definitely wasn’t uncertain, not about anything.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said. “Now, Gabriel, I really— I really _do_ have this paperwork to put away—”

“I’ll do it for you!” Gabriel said.

“Oh, no, no, you really don’t have to—”

Gabriel reached to take the file from Aziraphale’s hands, dragging it away from his chest, and Aziraphale let out a sort of— It was a kind of breathless _noise_ , still leaning away from him, and Gabriel said, “I’m going that way anyway,” which wasn’t true, but felt like what should be said. “You gotta get back to work, right?”

“Right,” Aziraphale echoed. “Er— Th— Thank you, Gabriel, dreadfully kind of you, honestly, ever so…”

“Well,” Gabriel said, “bye.” He said it more forcefully than he meant to, except that he felt hot, somehow, hot and uncomfortable, another one of those stupid emotions that being in a form like this gave you and he didn’t know what it was called, and he didn’t want to look it up in the catalogue.

“Toodle-oo,”

“Toodle-what?”

But he was already bustling off, and he _did_ bustle, somehow moved stuffily, nervously, his hands in front of him. Once or twice, he glanced back at Gabriel, and Gabriel watched him walk away, for some reason—

No reasons. No reasons.

“Ah, Gabriel,” Sandalphon said, “how—”

Gabriel slapped the file against Sandalphon’s chest, still watching Aziraphale move. His body… shifted, when he moved. Would Gabriel’s do that, if he had a body? “Take this down to have it filed for me, would you? Thanks, champ.”

“Er,” Sandalphon said, “alright.”

\--

Gabriel got a body.

They tried to ask him why, but when he stared at them, they just hurried more quickly through doing the forms, and now, he had it, and it was… He liked it, yeah. He liked it, he liked it, and the _clothes!_ You could dress it up, and there were fabrics _even softer_ than the ones Aziraphale had worn – there were soft silks and felts and velvets, and when you dragged your fingers over them, you felt the fabric underneath, felt it touch against the pads of your fingers.

He liked it. He _liked_ it. He liked—

Hair!

You had _hair_!

In his approximation, before, it had just been a shape on his head, it had just been colours, but this, this is— You could _touch_ it. He could run his fingers through it, and feel the individual hairs brush back against his palm, and either side of his fingers.

“Aziraphale!” he said when next he saw the other angel, delivering more paperwork – they’d be formatting a new system, soon, with pigeons or doves or something, but he didn’t really care how it worked – and he stumbled back from Gabriel just like last time, his gaze falling in line with his chest.

“Ga— Gabriel,” Aziraphale said. “Er, hello, may I— that is to say, er, is there anything I can help with?”

“I got a body,” Gabriel said demonstratively, puffing out his chest and looking down at Aziraphale. “See?”

“Right,” Aziraphale mumbled. “Yes, yes, I see— I see that. Very nice.”

A silence passed. Aziraphale wasn’t back against a wall, this time: they were together in the middle of the floor, and Aziraphale swallowed, shifting his paperwork in his palms. The pause had gone on for too long, Gabriel thought.

Just as Aziraphale coughed politely, and was going to say, “Well, I ought be going—”, Gabriel said, “You can touch it, if you want.”

Aziraphale stared at him, and once more, his eyes went wide, and Gabriel wanted to _do_ something about them, about the colour in them, wanted to grab Aziraphale’s head and tilt it back so he could look at them in the light, but no, no, he wouldn’t like that – that would be like being squeezed, wouldn’t it? No. He didn’t want… He didn’t want to do something Aziraphale wouldn’t _like_. It seemed important, somehow, significant.

He wanted, he realized, with a sort of prickling clarity, that he wanted Aziraphale to like _him_. Everyone liked him, everyone, everybody, but— But he wasn’t sure, with Aziraphale. He wasn’t certain that Aziraphale did. He wasn’t sure Aziraphale liked anybody.

“Er,” Aziraphale said, shaking his head. “Er, n— No, no, Gabriel, I really don’t need to…”

“No, it’s okay,” Gabriel said, and he wanted to say, but you can, you can, I told you you can, and I touched you before, and I want you to do it back, and I won’t squeeze you, I’m sorry, I won’t squeeze you, I want to do it right, because it’s a body, and I like it, I want it, it’s weird, it’s hard, it’s different, but I want you to feel my suit, the fabric… Instead, he said, “Here,” and grabbed Aziraphale’s hand by the wrist.

“Oh, Gabriel—!”

He pulled Aziraphale’s hand, which was soft and _warm_ , so warm, up against his chest, so he could feel the silk of his scarf, and the warmth that came off Gabriel’s chest. He felt the hardness of Aziraphale’s ring on his pinky finger, so different to the softness of the flesh, and he felt Aziraphale’s fingers twitch.

“See?” Gabriel said again, more urgently this time, because he wanted Aziraphale to _like_ him, and to smile, and to say— He didn’t know. He didn’t know what he wanted him to say. But he was different, and it was frustrating, didn’t he see it? Didn’t he see how different he was, and how Gabriel _noticed_ , and how Gabriel wanted him to notice him back? “I got a heartbeat and everything.”

Aziraphale’s lower lip quivered as he looked at Gabriel’s chest, and then up and into his face. His eyes crinkled at their edges as he smiled awkwardly, politely, didn’t he know another way to smile?

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, falteringly. “Well done. Good chap.”

It wasn’t what Gabriel wanted. He didn’t know what he wanted, except that he wanted, and that it panged, kinda. It panged. He didn’t like it. He let go of Aziraphale’s hand, and it lingered against his chest for just a second, just Aziraphale’s palm on his sternum, fingers brushing his scarf, before it withdrew. Just a second, it was only a second, but time was different up here, anyway, and maybe it was different, maybe he did…?

“Well,” Aziraphale said, always with the polite smile. “No rest for the, er, w— Good.”

“Right,” Gabriel said, a little woodenly, feeling hollow, and watched him go.


End file.
